Transform Your Travel With My Decades of Expertise

Itinerary Reviews

The Deep Map Itinerary Review is a personalized, asynchronous consulting service designed to turn your road trip route into a meaningful story rather than just a checklist of stops.

You submit your current draft plan, and I personally review it through the lens of Landscape Literacy—interpreting the layers of time, ecology, human history, and community-rooted stories along your exact path.

Go Deeper Sessions

Plants, animals, and waterways reveal how a landscape lives and changes.

Custom Itineraries

Offered on a limited basis.

Meet the Outdoors Historian

I'm Emily Macgillivray, PhD, and I created The Outdoors Historian because I believe the best trips don't just take us somewhere new—they help us see the world differently. As a historian and educator, I've spent years exploring how geology, ecology, history, and culture shape the places we visit. Today, I help curious travelers uncover those stories and experience landscapes with greater understanding and intention.

I call this reading the landscape. When we learn to notice the layers of a place—from ancient rock formations to Indigenous histories and living ecosystems—we don't just travel farther. We travel deeper.

Lake Superior is the perfect place to begin. Its remarkable landscapes are filled with stories waiting to be discovered, and I hope my articles, guides, and personalized planning services inspire you to explore this extraordinary region with fresh eyes.

The Outdoors Historian

Helping you read the landscape.

So you can see places differently.